"Then she heard French horns sounding down through the water, and she thought ‘now he is out (...)

(...) sailing, the one who I love even more than father and mother, the one who fills all my thoughts and in whose hand I wish to place all my life’s happiness. I will risk anything to win him and an immortal soul! While my sisters are dancing inside my father’s palace, I will go to the sea-witch – I’ve always been so afraid of her, but she can perhaps advise and help me!’
Behind it lay her house in the middle of a strange forest. All the trees and shrubs were polyps – half-animal and half-plant – they looked like snakes with hundreds of heads growing out of the earth; all the branches were long, slimy arms, with fingers like pliant worms, and joint by joint they moved from their root to the outermost tip. Everything in the sea they could catch hold of they twined round tightly and never let go again.
The little mermaid remained standing quite terrified outside there; her heart pounded with fear, she had almost turned back, but then she thought of the prince and of the human soul...